


Justice incited my sublime Creator

by ranichi17



Series: The highest Wisdom and the primal Love [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley as a fallen Raphael, Footnotes, Minor Acts of Sacrilege, Other, Post-Canon, Sibling Love, Wing Grooming, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 14:39:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranichi17/pseuds/ranichi17
Summary: Michael realizes who the adversary that tempted Aziraphale really is during the trial and botched execution. This leads to complications.





	Justice incited my sublime Creator

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was supposed to be posting the scene I cut from the original fic, but then it turned into its own monster of a fic while I was polishing it up before publishing.
> 
> Just like the first fic, the title comes from Canto III of Inferno.

_Heaven is still the same boring, empty place as always,_ Crowley thinks as he flexes his hand against the binds that ties him firmly to the chair [1] [2]. _Not even a single houseplant to change the view._

He hears footsteps approaching from behind him, self–assured and taking long strides, and thinks _Oh, joy. It’s_ Gabriel.

The tap on his shoulder barely registers before Gabriel is standing right in front of him, Uriel and… Sandalphon, was it, materializing at around the same time [3].

“You could’ve just sent a message,” Crowley says in Aziraphale’s voice, but without Aziraphale’s cadence of subservience. _You were the Messenger, brother. It’s the least you could do._

“Call it what it was,” Gabriel says in turn. “An _extraordinary_ rendition.” Then to Uriel, he asks. “Have we had word from our new _associate_?”

“He’s on his way,” Uriel answers, and even in the midst of the absurdity of the situation, Crowley can’t help but notice the golden flecks smattering all over his sister’s skin, as if her holy essence is threatening to spill out of her corporation entirely.

Crowley wonders idly if she was the one who got rid of his greenhouse, soon after he Fell. She never did fancy the species he had placed in it.

Gabriel raises his hands and curls them into fists, shaking them in glee like he’s just crossed the finish line of a marathon. “He’s on his way. Oh, I think you’re going to _love_ this.”

 _Associate_ , Gabriel says, as if he did not particularly like the term and what it entails. And suddenly Crowley realizes what his siblings intend to do with Aziraphale. They’re not just going to give him punishment, they’re going to wipe him out from existence.

Crowley raises his eyebrows and smiles, trying not to let his rage seep through. “If you don’t mind my asking, where is the Archangel Michael?”

The Archangel Michael is on their way Below Stairs, carrying a pitcher of holy water they’d blessed themselves just a moment ago. They had never been here before, and the infernal static that’s all over the place was starting to get on their nerves.

Was this how felt for their brothers? The infernal static seeping into their very beings until it twisted them into something they were not? Was this what they had wrought, when they were given the task of making them Fall?

The elevator stops with a resounding ring, and with it, Michael’s thoughts stop as well. The demon tasked with bringing hellfire Upstairs crosses paths with them as they exited. Michael wonders if it’s an insult, to send someone so lowly and inconsequential to destroy one of the Host when Michael themselves blessed and brought them the holy water.

Michael walks through the dimly–lit halls, hissed and cursed at by the creatures of the underworld, though they’re sure none of them could touch them, until they reach the makeshift courtroom, stopping in front of a bathtub, of all things.

“The Archangel Michael? That’s… unlikely,” the traitor, the Tempter, asks, and Michael turns to face both defendant and jury.

A shock of terribly familiar red hair greets them, distinctly visible even through the abysmal lighting.

_Little brother?_

It can’t be him. Lucifer would never have let Raphael out of his sight, much less allow lesser demons to preside over the obliteration of an Archangel, no matter Fallen.

But then again, it was just like Lucifer to watch the world burn around him and let celestial sibling destroy celestial sibling with nary a care in the world.

“Well, wank–wings, you brought the stuff?” Hastur asks. Michael has never liked Hastur. Too crass and disrespectful, even Before.

“I did,” Michael says, forcing themselves back into their mask of neutrality. “I’ll be back to collect it.”

Michael moves to hand over the pitcher of holy water, but Hastur puts a stop to that, refusing to get even within an inch of it. He has the right of it; Ligur was obliterated within moments by a bucketful of Principality–blessed water, a drop of holy water from an Archangel would wreak far more damage.

So instead Michael pours the holy water into the tub, sizzling as drops of it hit hapless members of the infernal crowd, and never once breaking eye contact with Raphael as they do. What could he be thinking, behind those dark lenses of his? Shock? Betrayal? Michael had been responsible for his Fall once. And now it would be Michael who would be responsible for his final destruction.

“That’s holy water,” Raphael says, dumbfounded.

“The holiest, yes,” Michael agrees.

“It’s not that we don’t trust you, Michael, but obviously we don’t trust you,” Beelzebub butts in, and Michael silently agrees. It would be a funny world if demons and angels went around trusting each other, especially if, as Michael suspects, all of Hell conveniently left out the fact that the demon they were to obliterate was an Archangel.

Michael smiles a thin–lipped smile and leaves as Hastur picks up a Made Demon to test the water. If there is a place where obliterated entities go, Michael damns Ligur to suffer in it, for tricking them into the series of events that led to this moment.

_Flee, little brother._

It would be so easy, Crowley thinks as the demon throws hellfire inside the wards that prevent it from spreading through the rest of Heaven, to reveal himself and get this over with. Too easy, to pull rank on the Messenger and remind him that Healer and Destroyer are but obverse sides of the same celestial coin. But to do that, Crowley would have had to reveal himself, not as a male–shaped being, not as the Serpent of Eden, but his _real_ form.

He can’t. This ruse was all that stood between them and obliteration. And besides, there’s no knowing what revealing his true form would do to his siblings if they’re not prepared to see it [4].

“ _So._ With one act of treason, you averted the war. Congratulations,” Gabriel says, frowning.

Why do they want a war so much? And since when were Gabriel’s eyes that purple, anyway?

“Well, I think the greater good—”

“Don’t talk to me about the greater good, _sunshine._ I’m the Archangel _fucking_ Gabriel.”

 _And_ I’m _the Archangel fucking Raphael. You may not speak to me in this way,_ brother, Crowley thinks, though he does not articulate it. But oh, if looks could kill, Gabriel would be a puddle of ectoplasm by now.

Uriel tugs on Crowley’s bindings in one fluid motion, regarding him as she would an inconvenient vermin. “Up,” she says, and Crowley wonders just how it is his sister managed to sound exactly like Azazel did, all those millennia ago.

“I don’t suppose I can persuade you to reconsider?” Crowley asks, smiling as he’s sure Aziraphale would have done. “We’re meant to be the good guys, for Heaven’s sake!”

_Why must they suffer, Mother?_

“Well, for _Heaven’s_ sake, we are meant to make examples out of traitors,” Gabriel says with a flamboyant gesture Lucifer would be proud of.

_I must test them. No more questions, my Raphael._

“So, into the flame.”

_You are banished, Raphael._

It is just like his Fall. Only, now it is Gabriel instead of Michael, the younger instead of the elder, and a flame instead of a void.

Crowley approaches the fire slowly, letting his siblings savour this moment, as Michael must have done when they watched as he Fell into the abyss.

“Well then, may we meet on a better occasion,” he says to his eager audience.

_I had to do it, Michael! She doesn’t care about Creation anymore!_

“Shut your stupid mouth and die already,” Gabriel says, punctuating it with an affable smile, and suddenly Crowley has half a mind to drag his little brother into the flames with him.

_I’m sorry, Raphael._

Crowley steps into the flames.

The thing about demons and hellfire is that hellfire isn’t the most relaxing thing in all the planes of reality. Demons who step into it do still feel a sort of burning sensation similar to what they felt upon atmospheric reentry when they Fell, especially when you’re a former Archangel whose dominions aren’t exactly aligned with your older brother who created hellfire in the first place as a poor substitute for the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. Still, hellfire _does_ renew one’s demonic powers regardless of celestial origin, and since Crowley had just used up most of his during the Apoca–lapse when keeping his flaming Bentley in one piece and stopping time for all except three occult beings, he’d welcomed the flame’s renewal. In ordinary, human terms, what Crowley is experiencing right now is stepping into the shower after a long day at work, except that the shower heater is cranked up at a supernatural setting that would make one suffer horrible burns were one to step into it unawares.

Crowley’s siblings are still watching him, waiting for him to burn up into ashes. Falling someone wasn’t enough for them anymore, now they want a show. And if that’s what they want, Crowley will give it to them. He roars, breathing hellfire at their direction, relishing at the way it made them scuttle back like terrified mice. Which they are, if you think about it. And Crowley’s the wyrm that would devour them all, if only for a certain Principality.

Strictly speaking, Michael did not technically leave the premises of Hell. Rather, Michael had spent the last few minutes inside the infernal elevator, whiling them away as they tried to regain their composure even as the sizzling of a demon being obliterated by holy water echoed through the entire floor.

 _Gabriel!_ This was Gabriel and Beelzebub’s idea! Did Gabriel not recognize their brother for him to collude with a _demon_ to destroy another? How was Michael supposed to realise the demon was _their brother_ when they volunteered for the job?

Maybe this was punishment. A long time coming, yes, but so very well deserved. Precipitate one brother’s Fall, be unable to prevent another from the same fate. Clearly, obliterating said brother from existence was the cherry on top, as the mortals say.

The sizzling stops, and Michael’s posture stiffens.

It is finished.

Michael walks out of the elevator, resolutely refusing to let their corporation’s hands waver as they carry out the pitcher.

The Archangel’s gaze falls solely on Beelzebub as they entered the court. “I came to bring back the —”

Instead of the expected glee, Beelzebub looks dumbfounded, staring at Michael as if they’d accidentally revealed their true form. Or rather, at something _next_ to Michael.

Michael turns their head.

“Oh. _Lord._ ”

Raphael was sitting up in the tub, grinning like an idiot. _Alive. Whole._

“Michael! _Dude!”_ Raphael yells. Michael bristled at that. They thought they’d raised Raphael better than that. Must be Lucifer’s influence. “Do us a quick miracle, will you? I need a bath towel.”

And without thinking, Michael did just that.

_How is this possible?_

“My dear,” Aziraphale says into his cup of cocoa, wings folding in around him in an effort to stay warm. It’s too chilly, even for a wet spring morning. “Do you remember what it was like?”

Crowley, who was currently in the form of a common garden snake and warming himself by napping under the intense light of Aziraphale’s table lamp, tentatively opens one serpentine eye. “What was what like, Angel?”

“Falling. I mean,” Aziraphale says, clearing his throat. “You don’t… have to talk about it if you don’t want to, you know,” he adds hastily when Crowley starts slithering off the table.

“Do you really want to have this conversation right now, Angel?” Crowley sighs soon as he plops down into a pile on the dusty cottage floor. “Because if you do, I can’t be a snake for that.”

Aziraphale ponders upon that. “Well, do you?”

Crowley groans exasperatedly, stretching himself to full length as he transforms back into a male–shaped being and manifests his own wings at the same time. “Whatever got into you this morning? But we might as well get that out of the way, right? Give me your wings.”

 _“What?”_ says Aziraphale, positively scandalized at the suggestion.

“Your wings are enough to make a grown man cry, Angel,” Crowley says, narrowing his eyes. “When was the last time you preened them? I’ll do your wings and you can do mine. Do something while you have me tell my whole bloody backstory.”

Aziraphale just blushes [5].

_“How could you?”_ Michael all but growls when Gabriel meets them at the elevator.

“I take it the demon known Crowley hasn’t been obliterated by the water?” Gabriel asks. Bloody, _stupid_ Gabriel who has never once known how to read the atmosphere.

 _“The demon Cro—_ Of course not!” Michael screeches, full of suppressed righteous fury. “Did you really think it would be that easy?”

“I thought so,” Gabriel nods sagely. “Aziraphale did not react to the hellfire as well. We might have to think of something else.”

“Gabriel,” Michael says in a booming voice previously reserved for use solely to command the Legions. It makes Gabriel snap into attention and leaves him with an odd desire to salute. “Listen to me.”

“What is the matter, Michael?” Gabriel says. “Has Beelzebub done something?”

 _“Raphael,”_ Michael says, as if the name were a prayer one used to know the words to but has now forgotten from years of neglecting to say. “I found him, Gabriel.”

“He’s returned? He never— Where is he?” Gabriel asks, as one does when one is a little brother hoping for the return of a beloved older brother who has failed his promise to return from doing their Mother’s Will.

At around this same moment, Michael remembers with increasing alarm that they have never told anyone about said beloved brother’s Fall. In fact, so secret was the Fall that everyone in the Host believes the Archangel Raphael is still out in the cosmos hanging up the stars in accordance with the Almighty’s instructions.

“Do you remember when Our Mother commanded I follow him to Vega?” Michael sighs. There would be no easy way to break this, unlike Samael’s fall, witnessed by the whole Host.

“Yes?”

“I was sent to precipitate his Fall, Gabriel.” In human metaphors, Michael has just decided that instead of picking slowly at the sides of a band–aid, ripping it off in one fluid motion would be easier. “The demon Crowley, it’s him.”

“Are you certain?” Gabriel asks. “It could be a trick.”

And indeed, demons are infamous for using glamour to trick mortals into thinking a demon was a loved one rising from the grave. However, it is unheard of for a celestial being to fall for the same trick. Unheard of, but certainly not impossible.

“No, it’s him,” Michael says, miracling the pitcher of holy water away to free their hands. “He’s kept his hair all flaming red like that blasted star he loves so much. No demon can do that with glamour. How did _you_ not recognize him? _You_ were at the airbase.”

The truth of the matter is, as Gabriel was barely more than a fledgeling at the time, Gabriel does not remember what Raphael looks like, aside from a halo of fire and a voice of equal parts concerned and exasperated [6].

“Now, do we know where the Principality Aziraphale currently is?” Michael asks, softening their glare at Gabriel.

“We’ve kept our surveillance on him,” Gabriel replies like it was already obvious. “Why?”

“It’s simple, really: we find Aziraphale, we find our brother.”

“And Michael! _Michael!_ The one sibling I respected, and they’re the one to kick me out!” Crowley says, tugging on one of Aziraphale’s primaries to straighten it. Maybe a little too much, as Aziraphale winces and involuntarily flaps the wing free from Crowley’s grasp. “Sorry, Angel.”

“It’s no matter, dear,” Aziraphale says, flapping his wings forward to inspect Crowley’s handiwork and, satisfied, hid them away again. “Turn around, let me do yours.”

“You know, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, falling into the rhythm of smoothing out the feathers that were facing the wrong way. There were unsurprisingly only a few, as Crowley spends a lot of hours grooming them into place every few days. “The Archangels never mentioned that. The Host thought those who Fell with Satan were the first and only ones.”

The door to their South Downs cottage bursts open. Strange, Adam and his friends weren’t supposed to visit until the next week.

 _“Principality Aziraphale,”_ someone says with enough Righteous Fury to make Aziraphale’s skin prickle midway to plucking off an unsalvageable alula feather; and even stranger, with enough mortification that can be expected from an elder sibling who has just caught their younger brother _in flagrante delicto_ with someone they disapproved of.

They both turn towards the door, Crowley hiding away his wings.

The Archangel Michael stands before the door, staring daggers at them, the early morning sun shining from behind their head, lending the appearance of a halo that makes them feel as if the Archangel’s there for some righteous smiting.

“A–Archangel Michael,” Aziraphale says, standing up and moving away from Crowley. “Er…”

“What are you doing?” the Archangel demands as they let themselves into the cottage.

Aziraphale’s about to speak when Crowley beats him to it. “Preening, Michael. What the heaven does it look like?”

Michael softens at the sound of Crowley’s voice. _“Raphael—”_

“Don’t.” _How the fuck did Michael find out?_ “That’s not my name anymore.”

“So it _is_ you,” Michael simply says.

“Surprise,” Crowley says dryly, gesturing with his hands. “Happy now?”

“Happy?” Michael asks as they slowly approach Crowley. “Why would I be happy?”

“Because _you_ Felled _me_ , Michael!” Crowley hisses, unfurling his wings to full length once again. “Why are you even here?”

Aziraphale, sensing that an almighty argument was on its way, wisely says: “If you’re going to have a row, please do it outside. I don’t want the cottage catching fire. I’ll be in the kitchen in the meantime.”

“That’s not necessary, Angel,” Crowley says, unwilling to drop his own death glare at Michael. “Michael’s just about to leave.”

Michael’s face falls. “ _Please. Raphael._ I just want to talk.”

“My name,” Crowley pulls his sunglasses off. “Is _Crowley_.”

 _“Will you listen to me?”_ Michael says in the same way they used to get Crowley to stand down in sibling disputes as fledgelings, and unfurls their own set of glittering carnelian wings in an obvious attempt at intimidation.

“Here to smite us then?” Crowley demands, wings raised like a swan’s in anticipation of a brawl. “Not content just Falling me and _then_ trying to dissolve me in holy water?”

_“No!”_

And oh, Crowley has never expected to see the day Michael’s eyes would glisten as they’re doing right now. Stoic, stick–up–their–arse Michael. He almost regrets his words. _Almost._

“I came to apologize,” Michael finally says after taking some blessedly long moments to regain their composure. “And to take you back home.”

“Take me home?” Crowley snorts. “You can’t undo a Fall, Michael. I’m banished for eternity.”

“You did not Fall,” Michael says, almost pleadingly. “I thought you did, and I have blamed myself for that failing every day, but you did not Fall. The holy water is proof of that.”

“What do you mean you blamed yourself?” Crowley asks, lowering his wings finally. “You gloated as I Fell. Just stood there and watched as I Fell into a pit of muck and boiling sulphur.”

“The holy water—”

“That was Aziraphale, I’m afraid,” Crowley says, flickering between his forms as he was wont to do when he wasn’t concentrating. “I shouldn’t have Fallen for asking questions, Michael.”

“I’m sorry,” is all Michael could say, tentatively reaching out to touch Crowley, to assure themselves that Crowley’s there and isn’t about to disappear for six millennia again.

Crowley melts into the touch, starved of a sibling’s comfort for the same six millennia, and the walls he’d built up to contain his frustration finally crumbles. “What did you mean?”

“I didn’t know what Mother intended me to do, when I met you at Vega,” Michael says. “I wasn’t gloating, I was—”

“ _Don’t_ say it,” Crowley warns, getting the feeling he already knows. “Admit that and I’ll never respect you again.”

“Gabriel didn’t know until today. He misses you terribly,” Michael says instead as they reach up to touch Crowley’s hair. “You cut your hair.”

“Yeah, well, I have to keep up with human fashion,” Crowley shrugs. “So when Aziraphale said no one knows, he was telling the truth? Are you telling me Gabriel and Uriel grew up so bitter because of me?”

“Yes,” Michael says. “Come home. You didn’t join our brother in his Rebellion. We can still fix this.”

Crowley wants to believe, desperately, that Michael _can_ fix this, as they’ve so often done before, but he knows even his dependable eldest sibling can’t fix this mess. “I’m one of the Fallen,” he sighs. “Unforgivable. I can’t go back.”

“Brother.”

“Crowley. My name is Crowley,” Crowley says. “Besides, who’s going to look after our _darling_ brother if I were ever to go Upstairs again?”

Michael laughs a wet sort of laughter. Another first for Crowley. “What do you propose we should do then?”

“Well, you can visit our cottage,” Crowley suggests. “And bring Gabriel and Uriel with you next time, will you? I miss them.” Then, realizing just how sappy that sounded, he adds “Tell them that last part and I’ll discorporate you.”

“Of course you will, little brother.”

For now, they settled for each other’s warm embrace.

* * *

1 Well, Aziraphale’s hand, really, but right now it was Crowley who was in possession of the corporation. [return to text]

2 Not precisely true, as the last time Crowley was here, it looked less like a rooftop office space and more like a long, tedious expanse of nothingness. [return to text]

3 Sandalphon was created a little after Crowley’s time, ostensibly a replacement to retain the archangels’ numbers precisely at four. [return to text]

4 The answer was instant scorching of their earthly corporations to a crisp and possibly temporary blindness that can last up to a decade. [return to text]

5 There _is_ a reason for this disparity of reactions. While both angels and demons started out from the same stock and traditions, their opinions on wing grooming have wildly diverged since the Fall. Before the Fall, mutual wing grooming was done over gossip, sort of like schoolgirls braiding each other’s hair over sleepover gossip, which is how it still is in Hell, provided one can find a demon one trusts enough not to stick a celestial weapon in you while your back is turned. Otherwise, demons learn how to groom their own wings. In Heaven, on the other hand, wing grooming transformed into an intimate ritual, done only with one’s closest celestial siblings, or barring that, with someone one considers their helpmate and life companion, comparable to the practice of old Japanese couples to take turns cleaning each other’s ears. [return to text]

6 In terms of length of existence, at least. Angels and demons do not age, at least not in the way mortals do. Which is also why at that age, Gabriel could already natter on about the meaning of the word ineffable. [return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not even going to pretend I know what happened here, but I hope you enjoyed this fic. And I don’t know, maybe I’ll write for this verse again, maybe not. It’s all up in the air, really.
> 
> You know, I kind of think Crowley in his Archangel days would have looked like [this](https://ranichi17.tumblr.com/post/185852878934/the-boy-king-rp-xofemeraldstars-um), except his hair is way wavier.
> 
> As always, I also have a tumblr right [here](http://ranichi17.tumblr.com/). Come yell at me about Crowley being Raphael. Also have a [server](https://discord.gg/HwK2g4R) now, for all your Crowley as Raphael needs. Still a work in progress, though. Mr Michael Sheen, if you’re out there…


End file.
